Google imageThe victim was walking with two friends in front of 190 North Burgher Ave. in West Brighton when he was assaulted by a group who punched him while yelling anti-Mexican remarks.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 17-year-old from West Brighton faces hate crime charges in an alleged robbery Wednesday that’s become the latest in a string of attacks against Hispanics on the North Shore.

The teen, Yashua Plair, who lives on the 800 block of Henderson Avenue, in an apartment in the West Brighton Houses public housing development, is accused of pulling a knife on a 15-year-old Hispanic teen.

His arrest yesterday comes just one day before a scheduled appearance by Archbishop Timothy Dolan at an 11 a.m. mass today at St. Mary of the Assumption R.C. Church, Port Richmond, where he’s expected to address the wave of crimes in the neighborhood and deliver a message of peace.

According to police, the 15-year-old victim was approached in front of 190 Burgher Ave. at 8 p.m. Wednesday by a group of black men, including Plair.

Plair split off from the group, police said, approached the teen, pulled a knife on him, then used an anti-Mexican slur before taking property from him. The teen was not seriously injured.

An investigation by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force followed, and investigators took Plair into custody on Friday.

Yesterday, they charged Plair with robbery and menacing as a hate crime.

Since April, the Hate Crimes Task Force has investigated 11 attacks on Staten Island, most of them in the Port Richmond area involving black suspects and Mexican victims.

“The work that has to be done is long-term, and it’s not an easy solution,” said the Rev. Terry Troia, the executive director of the non-profit Project Hospitality, which does outreach work with Port Richmond’s Mexican immigrant community.

“And everyone, from our elected officials to the police to our community and church leaders, are working together intensively and consistently in order to build unity and bring peace,” she said. “And we will achieve that.”

The rash of robberies and beatings dates back to April 5, when a group of teens robbed Rodulfo Olmedo, a 25-year-old Mexican baker outside his Port Richmond home, beating him so badly that his skull was cracked. Police have arrested four suspects in that beating, though a grand jury declined to indict on hate crime charges.

Authorities also secured convictions against two suspects, a man and a woman, in connection with the muggings of two Mexican men in April. Similarly, a grand jury did not indict on hate crime charges in either case.

Earlier this month, a grand jury levied hate crime charges against a 17-year-old suspect in a July 31 beating and robbery.

Last month, the NYPD established a massive presence in Port Richmond, deploying collapsible three-story Sky Watch towers, setting up a mobile command center, and sending dozens of officers to patrol the area.

The attacks, and the police response, have also exposed what’s been described a simmering tension between the African-American community living in Port Richmond and the emerging Mexican immigrant population in the neighborhood. Port Richmond residents and population experts on Staten Island alike have said the economic downturn and the dire job market on Staten Island have strained relations between the two groups in recent months.

Though Rev. Troia had said shortly after the arrest of the suspect in the July 31 assault that she believed the community had “turned a corner,” she said last night: “You’ve got to be patient with the process that’s working to address many different levels of struggle within the community.”